Beneath The Ground Where She Lies
by wouldyouliketoseemymask
Summary: Keeny Manor had changed little since Jonathan Crane had last laid eyes on her. One-shot.


**Disclaimer: **I do not own the rights to "Batman" or any of its characters, including Scarecrow, nor do I own any rights to the comics or the films. I own nothing save for any original characters I have created.

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**Beneath The Ground Where She Lies **

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Keeny Manor had changed little since Jonathan Crane had last laid eyes on her; there were more coats of grime, more shattered glass and more layers of rust and decay, but it was still the same rotting farmhouse that he had granted a final glance of parting hatred before his blistered feet carried him to the bus stop in town and onto his new life in Gotham. For many years he had lived an existence devoid of cornfields and fresh air and crumbling red soil, even if Georgia still lingered within the soft accent that he tried so very hard to conceal and the hardened callouses on his hands that had never fully healed. His world now consisted of concrete and traffic and _freedom_—glorious, intoxicating freedom from his former home and all the misery and pain that had seeped into her walls like poison.

But today Crane found himself standing in the manor's fields, a grown man in his childhood garden, surrounded by dead grass and clouds of fog and memories that he ached to forget. He had no explanation for why he had chosen to visit Keeny Manor after nearly two decades, no possible motive for wanting to return to a place that served as little more than a mausoleum to a family legacy that had been squandered long before Crane had ever taken his first breath. He could not remember traveling to Georgia and he could not remember arriving, nor could he explain the growing sense of dread that gnawed at his gut and peppered his brow with slick beads of sweat.

The shrill _caw_ of a crow echoed throughout the garden, harsh and piercing as it rang in his ears and sent his pulse racing, a cruel reminder of the nights Crane spent in the atrium lying helplessly on the floor among shredded feathers and dried stains of his own blood.

Crane felt something graze across the toe of his shoe—a worn pair of loafers that he'd spent half a paycheck on years ago in a misguided, foolish attempt to fit in with his coworkers, and reignited a nagging modicum of shame every morning when he slid them onto his feet—and he instinctively jumped backwards, madly shaking his foot in an effort to fling away the unseen source of his discomfort. Rural life had ensured that Crane would encounter many a repulsive rodent and reptile during his barefoot youth, and the thought of yet again crossing paths with either fleas or scales made him quietly shudder. He could still recall one disgustingly hot summer day in the fields when he had nearly stepped on—

Crane froze when he looked down to see a skeletal finger emerging from the dirt, bone-white and unmistakable.

_No._

His mind screamed at him to run, to crush the foul thing beneath his foot, to do _anything—_but Crane remained rooted to the spot with fear as more loathsome bone emerged to expose the yellowed lace remnants of a nightgown and tufts of silver hair.

_No no no no no—_

The putrid stench of rot filled his lungs, its taste thick and vile on his tongue as she began her dreadful crawl towards him, fleshless and even more terrible than before. The events of his final night at Keeny Manor were forever seared in his brain, a vibrant and loathsome price for his escape—the burning pain as her fingernails tore at his skin with the frantic madness of a cornered animal, the sound of her dying gasp rattling in her throat when he finally worked up the nerve to remove the hand-stitched pillow he had pressed against her face, the way her glassy eyes and gnarled body began to disappear beneath the piles of dirt Crane shoveled until all that remained of his great-grandmother was a disturbed patch of soil in the manor's garden.

She would never let him to forget. Even in death, she had won.

"_Welcome home_,_ Jonathan,_" she rasped into Crane's ear, clods of filth and worms spilling from her mouth onto his shoulders as she drew him into her horrible embrace. The air filled with the frenzied beating wings while a thousand beaks tore at his flesh, and only then did the toxin finally allow him to scream.


End file.
